


like we were saying

by wearethewitches



Series: sixty-seven thousand miles an hour | the doctor is not a monk [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Accidents, Cute Kids, Food Issues, Gen, Light Angst, Lunch, Outing, Snapshots, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: “What’s a vegetarian?”“Oh no.”Ryan takes one of the Doctor's kids out for the afternoon. Not everything goes as planned.
Series: sixty-seven thousand miles an hour | the doctor is not a monk [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652698
Kudos: 26





	like we were saying

The TARDIS doors close. Then they open again, the Doctor clutching at the frame in anxiety as Cen holds Ryan’s hand impatiently, waiting for her to stop worrying.

“And only eat fruit and veg from Earth!” The Doctor presses her lips together. “Are you _sure_ it’s going to be alright?”

Not bothering to sigh this time, Ryan straight up tells her, “I’m stealing your kid. We’ll be back here later.”

“But-”

“Bye Mum!” Cen practically screams, patience finally run out. He drags Ryan down the street, away from where the TARDIS is parked in a handy little alcove in the wall and further towards the main bustle of the city.

When they hit the crowd, Ryan looks around, getting a mental map made before Cen tries tugging him towards the left. “Woah, wait a sec,” he mutters, stopping the alien child from going anywhere. “Some rules, yeah?”

Cen wrinkles his nose. “More rules?”

“No. Forget your mum’s rules, there were _way_ too many,” says Ryan, wondering why the Doctor’s seventeenth rule, _don’t buy anything orange_ , exists in the first place. Maybe it’s something to do with the Time Lord family she’s got back on Gallifrey – Ryan has no idea. Clearing his mind, Ryan lifts his free hand up, trying to emulate his Nan the best he can. “Rule one. If I tell you to do something, I need you to do it, because you could get hurt or be in danger and not know it. Stuff like holding my hand when I tell you to and waiting when I tell you to wait, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cen says agreeably, nodding along.

“Second,” Ryan continues, “If you want or need something, get my attention and _then_ ask me. I can’t read your mind – really, I can’t.” Cen grins and Ryan grins back, both of them knowing that Cen is perfectly capable of having telepathic conversations with his alien family. “Making sense so far?”

“Do as you say and talk to you clearly,” he recites.

“Cool.” Ryan feels the nerves set in, now he hasn’t got the Doctor being a helicopter parent, his insides jelly. “Three- we’re at three, right?”

Cen nods angelically.

“Cool,” he repeats. “Three is not to go out of sight and when we’re in a crowded place, stay right beside me so I don’t lose you. I really, _really_ don’t want to lose you.”

Someone bumps into his shoulder and Ryan decides it’s time for lunch, leading Cen to the nearest traffic lights to cross the road, still telling him the rules.

“Four is behaving. You behave and you get treats. You don’t behave, you don’t get anything – just a bad review to your mum.”

“What kind of treats?” Cen asks curiously, tilting his head back to get his long fringe out of his eyes. Ryan wonders if it would be too big a thing to get his pseudo-nephew a haircut without the Doctor’s permission.

“Uh, a toy,” Ryan decides, remembering when he was Cen’s age and how his mum got him things. Then it was his Nan, though she was more about pocket money and verbal praise than physical objects. “Or money to spend,” he adds.

“What’s number five?” Cen asks as the traffic lights go green, the rapid beating loud. Ryan only notices he’s cringing when they’re halfway across.

“Five is-” and Ryan’s mind goes blank, the only rule that comes to mind being about bedtime. “I can’t remember it. I think that’s fine, though. Four rules – tell me what they are?”

“Do what you say,” Cen lists as the enter the nearest fast-food restaurant, lining up at the counter, “Talk to you properly. Don’t go where you can’t see me and if we’re somewhere busy, stay beside you – can I hold your hand like this?”

“Sure,” Ryan agrees, squeezing. Cen squeezes back.

“And behave. I get prizes if I behave well.” There’s a momentary pause, before Cen says quietly, “My old mum had rules like that.

Ryan jerks, having the sinking realisation that all of the Doctor’s kids have other parents. He wants to ask Cen more about his…his _old mum_ , but the line moves forwards, the busy cashier looking to them for their orders.

“C’mon,” he instead steps forwards, eyes briefly scanning the boards for specials. Ryan then belatedly realises that Cen wouldn’t know much about fast food. “Uh, can I get some chicken nuggets and chips, please?”

“Would you like to make that a meal?”

“Yeah. Coke,” Ryan decides. “Can I get a kids version as well, with Sprite?”

“Of course. Is that all?”

“Yeah.”

Paying, he shuffles Cen off to the side by the wall, scoping out a table for two before he asks Cen, “Where did you come from? What was your first mum’s name?”

Cen taps his fingers across the plastic bubble covering the kid’s toys. Briefly, his hand curls into a fist. “I’m a Trion being, from Derkutus, the capital city of Polvaria. My planet was called Trion, too.”

“And your mum?” Ryan questions tentatively.

“Shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t what?”

Cen makes a proper fist, now, lightly tapping Ryan’s hip. The urgency in his eyes alarms Ryan.

“Trions are not supposed to dwell on the past,” he says, almost pleading. “I’m not supposed to think about home!”

 _Shit,_ Ryan thinks, crouching down so he’s more on Cen’s level. “Hey, it’s alright. Let’s get our food and find a table, then you can tell me more about it, yeah? You’ve not told the Doctor about this, have you?”

Cen shakes his head.

Hearing their order, Ryan stands up to get it, Cen following close behind him as he sits them down in a corner booth that he manages to snag. Handing Cen his activity box, he sets his own food out properly – fries in with the nuggets – before looking to the boy with an encouraging nod, nonverbally telling him to start.

Cen picks up one of his chips, nibbling on it for a second. “To dwell is to lose ones self,” he says, as if he’s reciting something. “My tutor was old and mean. He made me do maths.”

“Maths is evil,” says Ryan calmly, putting one nugget into his mouth whole. Cen eats more of his chips, then tries to speak through it all. Ryan stops that with a quick, “Don’t speak with your mouth full.”

Swallowing quickly, Cen says, “My mummy called herself _Doryanis._ When she was little, her nickname was _Nissy_. Did you have a nickname?”

“Uh,” Ryan stares for a second, then realises this might be crucial to his culture. “Earth doesn’t do that. We’re given names by our mums and dads and from what family we’re from. I’m Ryan, from the Sinclair family. Ryan Sinclair.”

“Oh. That’s not going to happen to me.” Cen says this in a matter-of-fact way, biting into a chicken nugget and immediately recoiling. “Is this an _animal?”_

Suddenly wary, Ryan swears. “Shit – are you vegetarian? Vegan?”

“What’s a vegetarian?”

“Oh no.” The Doctor’s rule about ‘only eating fruit and veg from Earth’ makes _so_ much more sense, now – if she hadn’t added the ‘from Earth’ bit, Ryan might have realised. “Bloody hell, you’re a vegetarian.”

Cen asks again, “What’s a vegetarian?”

“You,” Ryan says, quickly taking all his chicken nuggets and dumping his chips into Cen’s activity box. “Don’t tell your mum I gave you chicken. Actually, spit it out – you’re an alien, it might kill you.”

Looking visibly freaked out, Cen spits the bite of nugget into a napkin. He stares at Ryan with a betrayed expression, “I thought you loved me.”

“I do-”

“You just tried to _kill_ me.”

“No,” Ryan attempts to salvage the situation, “No, I made a mistake.”

Cen whines. “I want my mum!”

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan mutters, but Cen has _That Face_ on, the one Ryan recognises as the _I’m Telepathically Communicating With My Siblings_ Face. Only this time, Cen is calling – most likely _screaming_ – for his mum. “Shit,” he mumbles, not wanting the Doctor to storm into the fast-food place looking for her son and unnecessarily embarrassing them both.

Standing, he hurriedly packs their food away, abandoning their drinks to escape. Two seconds later, the Doctor meets them outside the door, sonic screwdriver pointing at his face. Ryan winces as she scans him and the food, making a worried noise.

“Ryan Sinclair, I _told_ you only to feed him fruit and veg! He can’t consume animal proteins!”

“Honest mistake,” he mutters, waiting a moment before following the Doctor and Cen as they make their way back to the TARDIS, the boy already on her hip and asking what a chicken is.

And here Ryan thought he was going to have a nice day out with his nephew.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: date (~or 'lunchdate', because this went somewhere else other than I planned.)
> 
> i accept any and all prompts/requests for this 'verse! either comment or leave an ask in my [ tumblr inbox](https://wearethewitches.tumblr.com/ask) and i'll put it in here somewhere!


End file.
